Hannah Birke
Hannah joined the von Caemmerer lab at ANU in 2015 to explore the possibility of increasing light use efficiency of higher plants by manipulating enzymes of the photosynthetic electron transport chain in chloroplasts.
Hannah is generally interested in understanding fundamental processes in plants and has, after working in several fields of plant research, a strong and versatile background in plant sciences and plant molecular biology in particular. One of her main areas of expertise is sulphur metabolism and cysteine synthesis, and the significance of the latter in different subcellular compartments for performance and reproduction of the plant. She also has significant experience in studying heat shock factors and their involvement in pathogen response and has more recently studied lignin synthesis and unusual lignin deposition in cotton cell walls.
Hannah holds a PhD in Plant Molecular Biology and Physiology from the University of Heidelberg, Germany (2012) and a Postdoctoral fellow (CSIRO Agriculture Flagship (2013-2015)
Hannah was part of the Centre from 2015 to 2018